So Close To The Top
by eeveemon123
Summary: I was a top trainer and was just on my way to beat the league when the unexpected happened and now i find myself in a completely new position to what I'm used to. A re-write of Trherring's fic of the same name. All credit goes to him for the story. disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**** So, this is my attempt at re-writing Trherring's story with the same name (I did get his permission by the way). This will also be my first try out at a reborn fic, so hopefully I can do well, and make this as good as the original. Okay, enjoy ****.**

**So Close To The Top**

**Chapter 1**

My name is Ryan and I'm a pokemon trainer. I collected all eight gym badges and seemed to do so in quite some style, so I had officially qualified myself for the pokemon league. However, because my team and I had finished so quickly in our aim to collect all badges, I decided that the right thing to do was to take a break from the constant training and battling regime that we had all become so accustomed to. We all deserved it, and the break was well received by the team too. However, when we only had a month left of our break, I decided that it would be best to give them intense training so that they had the best chance of beating the league. After one month of solid training we were all ready to take on the league. So now I was walking to the entrance of the fabled Victory Road.

The entrance to Victory Road was a lot less intimidating than it looked from afar when I wasn't inside the building. Walking towards the building and all I could see was a huge cave behind what was a Pokemon centre, although this one had a door that let any trainer with eight badges pass through onto victory road. I walked into the centre and straight over to the door where a serious looking guard stood there and looked at me sternly. He asked for me to show that I have all eight badges, so I waved the badges quickly, making him step aside and let me pass through. The door slid open and I smiled as I walked in slowly. I was surprised to find a major lack of trainers in the cave system; almost a complete contrast to all the routes full of trainers preparing to enter the cave, but there was no one in sight. I continued to walk deeper into the cave, the fading light from the centre was becoming even dimmer, leaving me practically blind in the cave's darkness. I could tell that I was just going to get hopelessly lost in the cave system's seemingly endless dead ends. This only made me a bit more miffed that no one else seemed to be in here, because I would have no one to even talk to as I tried to find my way to the league, and I would have no one to battle, so my team wouldn't even be warmed up for their league challenge, and they would need to be very ready for the Sinnoh league because every year they seemed to get harder and harder to beat.

I gave up the thought of being able to walk the whole way by myself, and it was far too dark for my liking, so I reached down to my trainer belt and unclasped one of the pokeballs from its latch. I held the pokeball up to my face and then turned it to release my friend and partner, my Umbreon. Umbreon was given to me when I was much younger, and when he was an Eevee. However, the night that I told him that we were going to challenge the Sinnoh Pokemon league, he evolved into the Umbreon that I saw before me, it was perhaps one of my happiest memories. His glowing rings illuminated the cave slightly, allowing me to see a few feet around me, which although it wasn't much, it was enough and more than I had before. Umbreon and I continued walking through the maze, constantly alert for any danger; he was sticking close to me to make sure that I was safe and I was sticking close to him to keep him safe, we were truly thinking like equals, only thinking of the other's safety, this was proving how strong our bond was. After another hour of what seemed like helpless traversing of the system; crossing many bridges where the bottom did not even appear barely visible, making me shudder, we managed to find an underground lake, I didn't want to release any of my other team members, so Umbreon and I made another route by scaling the rocky walls and then finding ourselves on a platform with only one way; across a long bridge. I thought my eyes were deceiving me because I was catching faint glimmers of light and I realised that this bridge was the final part of Victory road. I looked down at Umbreon and we both smiled at each other, knowing we had basically just defeated what was supposed to be the hardest route in Sinnoh.

I looked closer at the end of the bridge and saw a small hole of light, it was the exit. Umbreon and I proudly stepped forwards and walked calmly across the bridge. I checked my watch to see how long I had been here and saw that I had been in the cave for just over four hours and finally we had found the exit. We were just about half way across the bride when I heard a loud cracking noise and the bridge was wobbling slightly. I turned round and then heard what sounded like a massive explosion as a large Steelix snaked out of the ground where I was standing just minutes ago. The Steelix began rushing towards me; Umbreon stood in front of me in a defensive stance and fired a shadow ball at the steelix who took the attack and almost brushed it off with ease. The steelix then fired a dragon breath at Umbreon and he rode out the attack with great resilience, but it was obvious how strong the attack was.

Umbreon growled in anger at the steelix, and decided to strike back with his payback. He ran up the spine of the giant metal snake, a dark energy consuming Umbreon as he did so. He looked it in the eyes as he struck a powerful blow in the middle of its head. The previous shadow ball and that payback was enough to defeat the steelix. However, as Umbreon was jumping down from the attack, the steelix's limp form caused him to get side-swiped and sent on a course to a bottomless pit beneath the bridge. Without thinking twice I rushed to save Umbreon. Luckily, he was just about close enough for me to catch and in one swift movement I caught him and put him down on the bridge. I could only sigh in relief for a moment because I didn't realise that the 'bottomless pit' was in fact much shallower than I had thought and when the steelix landed on the ground, everything shook and the bridge was wobbling from side to side violently. I could do nothing about my failing balance, except wave my arms to try and regain any balance I can, unfortunately the tremors were too strong and as I lost my last inkling of balance I felt my feet leave the bridge and my body took flight. The world around me seemed to slow down as my thoughts sped up; I saw many memories pass by in my mind, both good and bad. As I fell my face was void of any emotion because I didn't know how to react to my sudden change of events that was leading to my inevitable demise. I calmly guessed the steelix had survived because I couldn't see it on the ground below, but then I felt slight frustration because all my effort to get to this point would now end so quickly. The last thing I heard was Umbreon's cry for me before I looked and saw the ground getting ever closer until it was at touching distance. I closed my eyes and then everything went black.

What happened next was possibly the strangest thing that has ever happened to me, and it still confuses me to this very day. I woke up stranded in mid-air in a pitch black room, although I could clearly see myself, I couldn't feel or move myself at all, so I surrendered to the floating state I was in. The room began to brighten a bit and that was when I noticed that I was not the only one in this room, in fact there were several others in the room with me. I managed to gain control of my head and neck, so I craned my neck up as I heard arguing taking place above me. However, as I listened closer I realised I couldn't understand what was being said. Although I knew that I wasn't the only one in the room, I didn't realise that I was the only human in there because I looked in the distance and saw a group of Pokemon. The longer I watched, the closer they seemed to get, although when I looked at myself I realised that it was in fact me that was moving towards them.

I stopped a short distance from them and they all looked at me, some were looking at me in disgust and anger, others were looking at me with intrigue and confusion, and others just stared blankly, it was all very unnerving. I gasped silently as I realised that the ones looking at me were the legendary Pokemon, all of them; I was terrified and felt like shaking, but my floating body kept still and I had to endure all of their stares. All of the ones who looked angry were far away from me, and shooting me menacing glares. I immediately noticed one of the others to be Palkia and it inched towards me until he touched my shoulder, causing me to gain feeling of my body again, now I began to shake nervously. Dialga roared in protest, causing me to freeze in fear of his immense power, but before he could reach me he was blocked by Giratina who then stood the other side of me, so I was in between Palkia and Giratina. After so much commotion I was surprised to see that Dialga was just shaking his head and disappearing before my very eyes, and soon all legendaries except for Palkia and Giratina followed suite. It was at the moment where only those two remained that I remembered the event that took place before I found myself in this room, so I began to panic and worry. Both legends looked down at me with an amused smirk written on their faces. I tried to protest, but found that my voice was bound by a psychic attack, so I stopped struggling, but I was still panicking on the inside.

The world shifted around me and I soon found that I was viewing my own house, and as I peered into one of the windows I could see the faint glow emanating from Umbreon's rings, but I could not see him myself. I began to feel myself tearing up and I turned to Palkia who looked at me blankly, as we continued our stare I began too feel weaker and more tired with every breath. I started to that he was glowing, the energy that was circling around him until it got absorbed by his body. I turned to look at Giratina and saw that the exact same thing was happening to him. I was confused, but when they both turned to face me I realised that they were getting the energy from me, I looked down to see that energy was literally being sapped by the two legendaries. I feebly attempted to struggle out of the process, but very soon the exhaustion from my energy being drained was taking a heavy toll on me, I was overpowered by my lack of power, and within the next few seconds I passed out from exhaustion.

I then woke up in a room that was white, and only white. I remembered everything that just happened and on top of my death I became even more confused, but now I was not nervous because I wasn't being viciously glared at by all the legendaries. I still had all control and feeling of my body, but once again I was alone. "Humans are so interesting when they don't know what's going on." A voice said matter-of-factly and then giggled a little bit. The voice came from nowhere and sounded like a young girl's voice, although I could tell there was a lot of wisdom with whoever this was. A harsh bright light brightened the room, so I covered my eyes with my hands and waited until I thought the light had subsided a little. When I uncovered my eyes, the room had dimmed slightly after the bright flash of light. However, that didn't catch my attention as much as the Mew that was floating just before me, playfully circling round me.

I swallowed hard and grit my teeth when I asked "Where am I?" I nervously asked because in truth I didn't want to know, but I had to know where I was at least.

Mew giggled again and then stopped right in front of my face "Well," she started before then moving back to keep a small distance away as she cleared her throat "you were dead, but now you're not. Yay!" she cheered, but this left me even more confused.

"So, I am alive now? I know this may seem like a stupid thing to say to a pokemon as great and clever as you, but I'm pretty sure no one can survive a fall like I had. So how am I alive now?" I asked, trying not to get my hopes of returning to my old life up too much because I knew that it couldn't happen.

Mew floated closer to me, still maintaining that child-like energy "You're right, you can't survive that fall, but here you are, alive, so yeah, I guess you could say that you are alive now….kind of." She muttered the last bit, making it unclear for me as to what she said.

I hopelessly asked "What do you mean?" I gave up, realising that I was not going to get a straight forward answer.

She smiled at me kindly "You'll see soon." She winked "By the way, tell Umbreon he owes me one." Mew laughed before disappearing like in the other room. Suddenly I felt extremely tired and fatigued and struggled to keep my eyes open, I could only fight it for a short while until my eyes closed and I fell into the deepest sleep I can ever remember having, but still plagued by the confusing thoughts that Mew had placed inside my head. However, I knew that I would get answers soon, so I rested quickly.

**A/N:** **Hope you guys liked it, I'm so thankful to Trherring for letting me do this; I hope I haven't made a complete mess of it. Please review this story because I am genuinely interested as to what you guys think of it. I'll update pretty soon on this one. Okay, bye.**


	2. Old Re-introductions

**A/N:**** Here is the second chapter, I would've got it up sooner, but I got so many things getting in my way. I am sorry about that. However, here it is, and again, I hope you like it and I hope I haven't made this a disappointing read in comparison to the original.**

**Chapter 2**

The very first memory I have after my brief and not particularly informative conversation with Mew was that I felt more relaxed than I had ever been, and I felt like I could stay in that position all my life. All my worries would have been gone if that one word hadn't crept into my mind; life. At the thought I suddenly felt a little sadder because I had lost my life, this made me want to shift from my comfortable position so I could jog my memory away from the fact I had died. I decided to stretch out, but my foot was being blocked by something, a wall, but when I tried again in a different place it was there again. In my mind I pictured the wall following to wherever my foot would press, and this was making me increasingly frustrated, so I opened my eyes to see what was blocking my foot. However, when my eyes inched open, a liquid soon rushed to cover my sight again. The liquid stung my eyes harsher than most Beedrill can, and I was now beginning to panic. In my panic I somehow managed to find the time to realise that I was becoming short of breath which only caused me to panic even more. I was struggling, wriggling in the small space I was enclosed in, trying to find any way out. I was now blinded and guided by fear and panic, so I hit the wall as hard as I could, but to no avail.

I bravely opened my eyes to see if there was a way out, but even when I fought through the pain, all I could see was darkness, which lead me no closer to finding any escape from this closed up prison. However, I noticed that soon after I had been thrashing about I was able to hear voices from outside whatever I was trapped inside. Hearing those voices gave me an extra incentive to redouble my efforts and break out. I tried kicking at the wall as hard as I could and it gave way slightly, causing me to pause and smile a little bit. However, this was short lived because I realised how short of breath I was. I repeated my kicks until I positioned myself so that I could break out head first. As soon as I broke out I regretted it because the air was cold and far less relaxing. However, I was soon taken into a warm embrace by an unknown presence; my eyes had closed from the extreme change in light, and I was choking on some of the liquid that I had accidentally swallowed in my rush to escape.

This time a clearer voice came to my attention and I was able to match it up with the voice I heard whilst I was trapped. The warm embrace had moved away, but was now getting closer because I began to shiver from the cold air. I felt soft warmth cover me as a body wrapped itself around me. "Awh, he's so cute. Look at him." The voice belonged to a woman, but I could not determine what age this woman was.

"He also look like he will be strong, just look at what is left of his egg; barely any of it left." Another voice chuckled, this voice was deeper and seemed all too familiar for me to ignore, so I turned in the direction of that voice and tried to force my eyes open, but I could only manage to keep them open for a second and by that time the barer of the voice had disappeared. 'Egg?' I thought to myself, but I couldn't link the word to anything I remember. I turned back to the warmth and shuffled as far into it as I could, but I left my head out. I slowly opened my eyes this time, letting my eyes adjust at the correct speed rather than rushing it. My eyes were soon nicely focused on the lights and I could see everything normally again. The first thing I was looking at was orange, all orange, but then I saw that I could only see orange, I looked to the right and soon found that there was a cream coloured mane that followed after the orange fur. I carried on looking further right until I met a pair of deep black eyes staring back at me. I quivered in fear from the intimidation, I knew what I was looking at, but I couldn't comprehend it, it was a giant Flareon and it was just staring at me with a warm smile on its face. I tried to stand up to get away but when I fell back down I immediately knew something was wrong, very wrong.

I looked down at my legs and couldn't believe at what I saw; a paw was where my foot was meant to be. I took a deep breath and tried to move my hand whilst looking down at the paw; I hesitated to move it but decided to test my theory. I was surprised when I saw the paw react at the same time I moved my hand, but then I realised that my hand was the paw; a sickening feeling began to sink in my stomach. I followed the paw up and across my body to see that I was now standing in a quadrupled stance and I had a tail, but I didn't even need to see that to know what I now was. From the tuft of fur that was blocking some of my view I could tell that I was an Eevee. As the realisation hit me, I felt like I had been punched really hard in the gut, I was out of anything to say to myself. I didn't know what to think, and when I thought about it again I felt a wave of sickness hit me as I felt the same gut wrenching realisation again.

The Flareon moved a little bit to get closer to me before moving its head away "Knight, come here quickly, I think something might be wrong, he looks sick!" she worriedly called. Hearing her voice caused me to back pedal away from her as quick as I could in shock. I was already overwhelmed with everything, but now I had to deal with a giant talking Flareon, if I didn't have the desire to know what was going on I would have fainted from all I had gone through before hearing her speak. However, what I did next probably scared her more than I could have ever been in this situation. I was staring at her in disbelief and I must have looked scared because she was moving up to me again.

"Did you just talk?" I asked, making Flareon look at me with shock, surprise and disbelief. I immediately regretted it because she looked ready to sprint out of the room, leaving me alone. I felt terrible for making her so scared, and tried to apologise, but I couldn't for some reason. I tried to walk back to her because I was now getting cold from being away from her body heat for too long, but as I tried to take a step I failed miserably and crashed onto the floor, causing her to instinctively rush to me and wrap her body around me again, although I could still see on her face that she was still undoubtedly scared of me. Whilst in her warm embrace I found that I felt a strong connection to her and felt like I could depend my life on her and she made me feel safe if I was near her. I knew why I felt like this, but couldn't quite remember why.

I opened my mouth to speak and apologise to her, but was quickly shushed before I could say anything. "We can talk later. You look tired, try to get some sleep." She spoke softly and feigned a smile to calm me down; despite the fact she was the one who needed to calm down more than me. I was considering the suggestion and was about to comply until I heard someone else rush in. The deeper voice was back and sounded as worried as Flareon's.

"I cleared up the egg shards. How is my son?!" the voice practically cried in worry. I peered over Flareon and thought I was going crazy because I saw Umbreon, my Umbreon stood in the doorway speaking plain English right in front of me. I didn't know what to do or say, I was too shocked to even move from where I was watching him. I knew it was definitely him and now I knew why the voice was so familiar.

When Umbreon got closer Flareon said to him "Knight, he just talked." She said seriously.

Umbreon must've thought it was a joke because he began to laugh again "I'll believe that when I see it." He chuckled as he playfully stuck his tongue out at me.

I was now certain I was more scared than Flareon had been when I spoke to her, I said to Umbreon "U….Um….Umbreon…is that you?" I asked, his red eyes now appearing more intimidating than ever. The question I asked caused both Flareon and Umbreon to look at each other with the same level of shock written on their faces, and when they both looked at me with the same expression I feebly tried to bury myself in Flareon's tail fur, but I still tried to maintain eye contact with Umbreon, even though the intense gaze he was giving me wouldn't have let me escape it anyway.

Umbreon stepped closer, causing me to shake, he closed his eyes and slowly exhaled before looking at me again and asking suspiciously "Do you already know me?" he said with suspicion, but that was overpowered by confusion. He spoke to me softly with care, so that he would try to get me out of hiding in Flareon's fur.

I hesitantly stepped out and gulped before replying slowly and shakily "You might not… believe this, b-but, well I can't believe it myself." I was shivering and shaking from fear again "This is really hard for me to understand as much as it will be for….. for you, but I am…. I am Ryan." Saying this caused Umbreon to reel back in shock; his red eyes wide in surprise, but they soon returned to normal as he tried to take the shock in vane. He stood still for a while making me unsure of what he was doing and also causing me to worry as to what his next actions will be. Flareon, feeling my fear walked over to me and pulled me closer to her as she also waited for Umbreon's reaction.

"What kind of Pokeball did you have before your first gym battle?" he choked out, trying to hold his emotions back.

At first I was utterly confused by the question, but then when I saw him look me dead in the eyes I could tell that he didn't trust me at all. I felt a worse pain than anything, Umbreon didn't trust me and it was making me feel abandoned and alone in a situation where I really did need any help I could get. I was struggling to keep eye contact, but I knew that if I were to break, then he would never believe me, even if I was right. "I only had one Pokeball, and it was yours. It was one of the cheapest around and you hated it so much that you were practically never in it. I had saved up for a year to get you a better one which was the one I used the last time I let you out before…." I stopped when I saw that he was rushing towards me without breaking eye contact. He embraced me and trapped me between himself and Flareon; she realised that something had happened and back up a little bit to give me some room. All of a sudden everything hit him and me, I was dead, but I was now an Eevee and I now had a friend here, but all of this was still far too much for me to take in and I began to burst out crying, tears streamed down my cheeks as I broke down whilst Flareon and Umbreon were both comforting me and trying to calm me down.

**Mew**

Mew sat breathing heavily, exhausted from all the effort she made to keep Ryan from freaking out, and it had taken more energy than she had initially thought, but it was necessary so that Ryan didn't freak out or lose his mind in all the confusion. The whole situation had to be completely changed so that Ryan could understand at least a little more than he would have. The result was far from what she expected; she had hoped that everyone would've been okay with the situation, but when Ryan began to panic, his emotions were overpowering her and she had to use extra energy to make him accept it and this was what had really exhausted her, because his emotions were so strong and so unpredictable because of his confusion and shock. He was currently crying relentlessly while starting to come to terms with the fact that this was no dream and there would be no waking up from it. He would now be living a new life as a Pokemon, no matter how unrealistic it seemed to him.

Mew felt a little bit bad about the situation she had locked him in, but soon brushed it off and told herself that he would get over it. Her idea was a far better alternative to what the other legendaries had planned. She sighed and decided to see if she could fix any of the mistakes she had made after she was fully rested, because she couldn't just leave something unturned, but she couldn't fix anything in the near state of exhaustion she was in.

**Ryan**

After crying myself to sleep I woke up and still found myself as an Eevee. Flareon was pressed up against me, keeping me warm and safe. I looked and saw that she was awake, and we just kept eye contact for a while until I began to speak "I am really sorry Flareon. I didn't mean for any of this to happen, and I hope that y-" I said, still feeling uncomfortable about earlier and how I must have made her feel when I scared her, but before I could finish my apology, I was shushed again and then she licked just behind one of my ears, relaxing me into her warm fur again.

"You have no need to be sorry." She replied licking my other ear, relaxing me even further. "All I need to know is that you are okay. You may have lived before, but now all of that is irrelevant on how I see you. You are now my son, and always will be; no matter what you do I will always remain proud of you." She whispered quietly before shifting into a more comfortable position and then falling asleep, finally satisfied that we were now clear with each other. Whilst Flareon was sleeping I stayed awake and began to observe my surroundings, but I never strayed to far from Flareon out of fear; for some reason I felt too scared to go to far from her, like she was my safety barrier. I stayed within a few feet of her as I tried to learn how to walk, stumbling around her hopelessly.

"I don't think you'll be strong enough to walk for at least another week." I heard Umbreon say from behind me, causing me to lose all balance and fall to the floor, because I didn't know Umbreon was there it was inevitable. Umbreon rushed over to my small body, realising his mistake, and quickly helping me up, but to my surprise I was picked up by the scruff of my neck. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that it didn't hurt to be picked up there. He placed me by Flareon's side and then he lied down the other side of me and stretched himself out.

I muttered "Umbreon." Getting his attention

"Yeah, what?" he replied tilting his head to the side curiously.

"Your name is Knight?" I asked, feeling amused and then ashamed that I had never actually named him myself.

He smirked at me, but tried to hide it from me and replied "Your sister decided to call me that a few weeks after you died, and I can't exactly argue my case very well…and I don't mind that name either. Still, I don't know why she chose it." He chuckled a little bit.

When he mentioned my old family it hit me like a ton of bricks. I looked around the room I was in and apart from the small beds we were sitting on, the room was very familiar, it was my old room; upon this discovery I then remembered that I would be seeing my old family again, my parents and my sister would all be there and I would be reunited with them in a way that I didn't expect, but I would still get to see them again. I felt a euphoric joy surge through my body and I made a joke about it to Umbreon as we both shared laughter in the happiness of the moment. "I bet you're looking forward to seeing your sister again. Because I'm sure she will be looking forward to seeing you." He said, trying his hardest to suppress a smile. At first I didn't know why he would be hiding a smile, but within the next second I did. I widened my eyes in realisation, half in fear, and half in laughter.

My sister was somewhat obsessed with Eevee, the closest she had ever gotten was Flareon, and whenever I brought everyone home she would practically steal her from me, much to Flareon's displeasure and to my annoyance. If she found out that I was here I would never be able to get to sleep. She would always be holding me, squeezing me tightly or I would be awake all the time, alert and waiting for her next move. It would not be a pleasant life and it made me shudder just at the thought of it. "Don't worry." He added "I'm sure that Flareon will protect you though, it'll be in her instincts anyway, so that should keep your sister at bay." He winked.

"And what about you?" I accused him jokingly, feigning a frightened voice.

He smirked "You left me alone with her for long enough to think that some revenge is in order. I'm sure I can think of some way to get round Flareon." He said making me laugh a little bit more. He then stopped and looked at me; he just stared at me and smiled, until he shook himself out of it "Sorry, I just can't believe it. Everything that has happened and now the best thing of all, I have my new son, you." He nuzzled me, and then we carried on talking for a while, we caught up on what had been happening. I was shocked when I found out that I had been dead for a whole year, after finding all of this out I was beginning to get tired, and Umbreon must have noticed because he picked me up and tucked me closer to Flareon. "You'd better get back to sleep, you're not nocturnal like I am, so good night and I'll see you tomorrow….. It's good to have you back Ryan, even with your…..differences. I'm just gonna say now that I won't be treating you any differently to how I would treat my kit if they weren't you, so don't expect too many of these conversations. Good night." He said as he walked away, I struggled in protest, but I soon realised how tired I actually was and I was soon curling up close to Flareon and drifting of into a peaceful sleep.

**A/N:**** I hope you like it. I guess this means from here on in it's however I would see the story progress, so I'll try and do my best on that. I don't know exactly when I'll update this, but because chapter sizes in this are smaller, it shouldn't be too long. Please review, I'd love to hear what you guys think. Okay, bye. **


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